Hourly rate

I went to a local pub at nine o’clock Christmas Eve and replaced a main fused switch that had failed closing the kitchen.


I billed £94 labour and materials, being an existing customer. However the pub went bust and I have the paperwork from the insolvency firm including their scale of fees.


?

£43.60 x 40 x 52 = £90,688.


But let's say 6 weeks of annual leave, and 2 weeks of sick leave per year. Now down to £76,736.


Realistic pension payments for half pay after 40 years - about 33%. Now down to £51,157.


Or if a standard working week is 37.5 hours, it's only £47,959.


One might consider paid study leave, parental leave, etc.


Leaving aside travel to and from site, for a true comparison, time spent buying stock, invoicing, doing the books, etc. should be included. So the OP is about right.

Back when I started work in the 70’s there were joint industrial councils, before Maggie Thatcher and the Conservatives got rid of them (political comment being relevant). 


I left school and signed an apprenticeship deed to deed to work for my Dad as an apprentice Carpenter on a CITB six month off the job course at Stourbridge College followed by day realise to complete the two years to get the craft level City & Guilds In Carpentry and Joinery ( I underlined the and as I don’t think there is such a course as such anymore). I didn’t do the advanced craft in C&J which would now be the level 3, I stopped at the craft in C&J which would now be a level 2, then did the C&G Construction Technicians parts 1 and 2 which would now be a level 3/4.


So I started work as an apprentice carpenter and was paid the BATJIC pay rates (Building and Allied Trades Joint Industrial Council), however because I was working for my Dad I was expected to do office work as well and did the payroll for the three employees of my Dad’s limited company, which was my Dad himself, me and another carpenter plus others on as as and when basis, with temporary employees going straight onto PAYE in those days with national insurance and holiday pay being accrued as stamps stuck on cards so that those who had more than one employer in a year just handed them to the new employer to work “Cards in”, which meant that if the employee only worked for a new employer for a week or so before their holiday the new employer gave them the holiday pay in full then cashed the card in from the BATJIC holiday stamps scheme. The National Insurance card was sent in at the end of the year and the employee was credited with having made the NI payments as appropriate.


The BATJIC issued rule books which set out what was expected of employers and employees.For example there was a tool list for each trade stating what hand tools each tradesman had to provide that they had to purchase themselves and make available whilst undertaking paid work for their employer, the employer did not have to help them to buy these tools, but had to pay a tool allowance to help pay for the eventual replacement that would be required as the employee was wearing their tools out doing the employers work, in addition carpenters and joiners had to be allowed half a hour a week during the paid working week to sharpen and maintain the tool they were supplying, bearing in mind that hand saws had to be sharpened by hand or taken to a saw doctor to be machine sharpened and set, there weren’t any throw away hard point hand saws.


I am going beyond what I was originally going to say.


BATJIC set out the pay rates for building workers across the UK, there were two rates, the higher rate was for London and Liverpool, the lower rate was for the rest of the UK. Liverpool was seen as having the same cost of living as London hence the pay rates were the same and higher than the rest of Northern England.


The second thing was that you went onto the full rate when you got the C&G Craft award. Now you have to remember that you could leave school at fifteen back then, my year at school was the last to have that option as it was raised to sixteen.


A first year apprentice got 50% of the full wage, a second year got 75%, then if you passed your exam you went onto the full rate, if you failed you went onto the labourers rate. 

So you could be on the full wage at seventeen of eighteen, it was also assumed that you would have passed your driving test by the time you were eighteen.


Now bear in mind that if you didn’t go into an apprenticeship you could go into a factory working on a machine on piecework, being paid per item, and you could earn an adult wage at the age of fifteen, I worked in a factory over the school holidays when I was fifteen on machines cutting and polishing half inch square metal blocks that were welded onto the internal PTO shafts of Massey Ferguson tractors, my mother said it was ridiculous paying a kid a mans wage, but as my Dad pointed out I was on piecework and the rate was the rate, it didn’t vary depending on who was doing the job.


Large building contractors had employees working on piecework had “time and motion” people, a subbie I worked for said when he worked for Wimpeys in the 70’s the carpenters were given the job of putting up a washing line post at the bottom of the gardens on a large new council estate with a line and pulley on the house, the T&M guy came and timed him digging a hole, mixing a barrow of concrete, setting the post, fixing the pulley and tie off then installing the line. That’s how it was, there was a system determining ho much people were paid.


So when guys started becoming self employed there were industry rates that guys based their pricing on, all off this went years ago, now most guys seem to just pluck a figure out of the air, they decide thy should be earning a grand a week without any real justification.


Andy B.

Now someone will point out that the electrical industry still has the JIB


So how many self employed people in the electrical industry use the JIB rates as a reference point when determining the rates they need to charge?


Andy B

I stand corrected, the FMB still have BATJIC rates on its website 

 

WAGE RATES FOR 2019/20

The 2019/20 Agreement involves a 2.75% rise in all the various wage rates, including the rates for all apprentices and trainees, plus an additional 2.75% rise in all hourly skills rates.

• The Adult General Operatives’ rate increases by 26p per hr. to £9.78

• For skilled wage rates, S/NVQ2 increases by 30p per hour to £11.02 and

• S/NVQ3 increases by 34p per hour to £12.79

• All other rates, including young adult operatives, all apprentices and trainees, and all hourly skills rates will also rise by 2.75% this year

HOLIDAYS

BATJIC holiday entitlement is 22 days holiday plus 8 bank holidays.

FMB


I don’t know any subbies or self employed people who are referencing those rates as a basis for their charge out rates.


Andy B.

I did a bit more reading about joint industrial councils, which were known as Whitely Councils and Maggie got rid of the government department effectively finishing them in 1981, closing the government department. As far as I can see what remains does not have the standing that JICs had up until 1981.


Certainly the guys I work with have no knowledge off and don’t use such rates when determining what they think they should be earning. Such decisions seem to be based on gossip, here-say and their own expectations rather that any industry agreements.


If you start reading the history of building trades industrial relations in the 1970’s you soon enter a very murky world.


Andy B.

Round about where I live, the local council applied to the High Court for an injunction against some environmental protesters. The council's outside QC charged a daily rate of £15,000 (no that's not a typo). And that didn't include the costs of the other solicitors and support staff involved in preparing and presenting the council's case.


Perhaps we all chose the wrong career paths!

There are days when you are struggling to make a living, yet people assume that as an electrician you are raking it in.

Andy  B